The Mad Earl's Bride

by Loretta Chase

  “It would appear there has been a misunderstanding,” she said.

  He couldn’t understand why she wouldn’t keep her distance from him when it must be obvious to her by now that he was deranged. It was certainly obvious to him.

  He pushed a hank of soggy hair from his eyes and looked up at her. Though she didn’t appear as demonlike as she had before, galloping after him, she still looked like a witch. A young witch, with her sharp little nose and chin and narrow, uptilted green eyes—and the hair, the wild mass of red hair. It wasn’t even a normal red but a strange maroon, glinting fire even in the gloom of the approaching storm.

  All the same, strange as she was, Dorian couldn’t believe he’d actually mistaken this young Englishwoman for one of Satan’s handmaidens.

  He should not have let himself become so overwrought, he reproached himself. If he had stayed with the two men and argued patiently and rationally . . . but he hadn’t. Instead, he had run away—from temptation, yes, but they would think he’d fled a mere girl—and now they would have no doubt he was a lunatic. Abonville would probably have him examined and certified non compos mentis.

  “Damn me to hell,” he muttered.

  “I don’t mean to plague you,” she said, “but I cannot work out what happened, exactly. What did they say about me that made you bolt? I have been wracking my brains, but all I could think was that Bertie—”

  “I didn’t know what to do with him!” he snapped. “The silly sod wants to stay with me—to the tragic bloody end—and I’ll never get rid of him without resorting to violence.” Then they’ll lock me away, he added silently.

  “I can make him go away,” she said. “I’m one of the few people who can actually communicate with him. Is that all?”

  “All?” he echoed. “No, that isn’t all. I want the lot of you gone. I don’t need Bertie about, sobbing the instant my tragic condition is hinted at. I don’t need Abonville telling me what’s good for me and what I ought to do. I’ve had a lifetime of that. And most of all, I don’t need a wife, damn and blast him!”

  The demons in his breast cried that a wife was what he most needed, and conjured erotic images he hastily thrust away.

  A pucker appeared in her brow. “That is odd. I should not have thought Abonville would misunderstand. His English is excellent. Or have you changed your mind about getting married? I do wish you would explain, my lord. It is very difficult to respond sensibly to a situation when one is so utterly in the dark.”

  “I did not change my mind,” he said, beating back an insane urge to smooth the furrow from her young—too young—brow. “I vaguely remember Abonville’s and your grandmother’s visit—whenever it was—and his explaining how he and I were cousins about a thousand times removed. That’s all I remember, and it’s amazing I recall so much, considering I had swilled about a gallon of laudanum shortly before he arrived.”

  Her expression cleared. “Oh, I do see now. Some individuals become extremely docile under the influence of opiates. You must have amiably agreed with every word they said—and all the while you had no idea what they were talking about.”

  Thunder grumbled in the distance, and black clouds were massing above their heads. She appeared to heed the threatening weather not at all. She only watched him with quiet concentration. The steady green perusal was stirring a dangerous yearning in his breast. He beat that back, too.

  “I tried to explain,” he said stiffly, “but he refused to listen to me.”

  “I am not surprised,” she said. “He was sure to think the Rawnsley he encountered the first time was relatively sane—because that Rawnsley sensibly agreed with everything Abonville said. Today, when you disagreed, he was bound to ascribe it to a temporary fit of insanity.”

  “The thought has crossed my mind,” he muttered.

  “Many people respond to seemingly irrational behavior in the same way,” she said. “Instead of listening to what you said, he probably tried to drum rationality into you by repeating his point over and over, as one drums the multiplication tables into children. Even medical experts, who ought to know better, believe this is an ‘enlightened’ way of dealing with individuals in an agitated state.”

  She wrinkled her pointy nose. “It is most annoying. No wonder you lost your patience and dashed off.”

  “That was a mistake, all the same,” he said. “I should have stayed and reasoned with him.”

  “Waste of breath,” she said briskly. “Your mental balance is in doubt. The explanation must come from one whose sanity is not doubted. I will explain to him, and he will listen to me.”

  She paused, looking about her. “The storm is not rushing upon us as quickly as I expected. For once, Providence shows some consideration. I should have hated going back without having the least idea what was wrong. Not that I am altogether happy with the answer. Still, one cannot hold a man to a promise made when he was not properly in his senses.”

  Bertie had said she wasn’t the moping sort. Even so, the faint note of resignation in her voice made Dorian feel guilty. She had saved his life. Though he wasn’t at all sure he’d wanted to be saved, he could appreciate the courage and efficiency with which she’d acted. She’d also calmed him. She’d listened. She’d understood.

  He looked away, wondering how much of an explanation he owed her and how much he could trust himself to utter.

  A jagged branch of fire darted over a distant ridge. The heavens rumbled.

  He brought his gaze back to her. “Does it not strike you as . . . morbid?” he asked. “That I should take a wife, now of all times?”

  She shrugged. “I can understand how it might seem so to you. Yet it is not much different than a decrepit old man marrying a young woman, which happens often enough.”

  It did happen, Dorian knew. Such a marriage meant a few months, perhaps a few years, of catering to a drooling invalid. The reward of a wealthy widowhood and independence more than compensated, evidently.

  He was hardly the one to revile a woman for acting out of greed. It wasn’t as though he’d ever been a saint.

  Moreover, he was aware that some women had remarkable powers of endurance. Was there so much difference, he wondered, between lying with a man who was as good as a corpse and lying with a drunken, lusting oaf, insatiable while the need was upon him and soddenly morose afterward?

  That was the man he’d been, not so very long ago.

  He shuddered—at the past and at what his future held if he yielded to his baser self and took what she offered.

  “We had better start back,” she said. “You are tired and wet and chilled.”

  She turned and moved toward her horse.

  Dorian rose and followed, relieved that she sought no further explanation. Though he’d already said more than he wanted, he still wanted to tell her more, to explain. But that would mean describing the sordid life that lay behind him and the helpless imbecility that lay ahead. Better to leave it as it was, he told himself. She seemed to accept the situation.

  They reached the bay gelding, and Dorian was so busy telling himself to hold his tongue before it got him into trouble that he didn’t pause to think but picked her up and set her upon the saddle.

  Too late, he remembered it was a man’s saddle.

  She swung her leg over and settled comfortably astride, naively exposing to his view several inches of feminine underthings.

  Between the dirty draggle of her petticoats and the slime-encrusted boots, her muddy stocking hugged a slender, curvaceous calf.

  Dorian backed away, silently cursing himself.

  She didn’t need his assistance. He could have mounted his own horse and started for home and let her take care of herself. He had just escaped a mire. No one would expect him to play the gallant at such a time, and she was obviously not a helpless female.

  He should not have allowed his mind to wander into the p
ast. He should not have touched her or come close enough to notice what her legs were like. Already he could feel his resistance weakening, was aware of the excuses forming in his treacherous mind—the false promises he knew better than to trust. There would be no relief for him, or release, if he yielded to this temptation. There never had been before: only a temporary oblivion and self-loathing afterward.

  He hurried to Isis and hastily mounted.

  GWENDOLYN ADAMS WAS not the granddaughter of a famous femme fatale for nothing. Though she had not inherited Genevieve’s raven hair or heart-stopping countenance or subtly seductive ways, Gwendolyn had inherited certain instincts.

  She did not have much trouble interpreting the Earl of Rawnsley’s expression when his exotic yellow gaze wandered to her leg.

  She did not have much trouble, either, interpreting her own reaction when his gaze lingered at least two pulse beats longer than delicacy allotted. The hot spark in his eyes had seemed to leap to her limb and set a little fire to it that darted up under her petticoats and past her knee, teasing her thighs with its naughty warmth before it swirled into the pit of her belly. There it set off sensations she had heard of but never before experienced in her life.

  She had never dreamed the mad Earl of Rawnsley would arouse such sensations, but then, he was nothing like what she’d expected.

  She had read about quicksand and the agonizing pressure it exerted. She was sure he must feel as though he’d been run over by a herd of stampeding bulls. Yet he had picked her up as easily as he might pluck a daisy from the thin Dartmoor soil. Now she watched him swing his long, powerful body up into the saddle in one easy motion, as though he’d done nothing more tiring than pick wildflowers.

  Puzzled, she followed the earl in silence down the narrow, winding track.

  Rain was falling, but halfheartedly. The worst of the storm seemed to be rampaging in the southeast.

  Rawnsley trotted on steadily, never once glancing back at her. If his horse had been fresh, Gwendolyn had no doubt he would have galloped out of Hagsmire in the same desperate manner he’d galloped in.

  Abonville had—with the best of intentions, assuredly—thrown him into a dangerously agitated state. It was bound to happen again, and the duc was sure to make the worst possible decisions out of the best possible motives. She had seen it happen too many times: greedy physicians, eager to make heaps of money trying their ludicrous theories out on hopeless cases, and loving families blindly agreeing out of desperation.

  But the medical experts were men, and with men, everything was a war of sorts. Doctors were bound to battle disease, at times, as though the victims as well as the illness were mortal foes. Then the physicians wondered why their patients turned hostile.

  What Rawnsley needed was a friend. At present, though, thanks to Abonville—and poor, stupid Bertie—he viewed Gwendolyn as the enemy.

  “Drat them,” she muttered. “Leave it to men to make a muck of things.”

  She was silently reviewing her long litany of grievances against the male of the species when Rawnsley drew his mare to a halt.

  Gwendolyn noticed that the track had widened. There seemed to be enough room to ride abreast.

  Rawnsley was waiting for her to catch up, she realized with amazement. Her spirits rose, but only a very little bit. Experience had taught her not to leap to conclusions, especially optimistic ones.

  When she came up beside him, he spoke.

  “You mentioned a hospital,” he said, moving on again. His voice was hoarse and unsteady. Exhaustion and inner distress were easy enough to diagnose. The distress itself was more difficult to analyze. He was not looking at her but watching the path ahead, and his long, wet hair hung in his face, concealing his expression.

  “I have been trying to guess why you would come to marry a dying madman,” he continued. “You said you needed me. I assume it’s the money you need.” He gave a short laugh. “Obviously. What other reason could there be?”

  That was rather a crass way of putting it. Nevertheless, it was true enough, and Gwendolyn had determined at the outset to be honest with him.

  “I do need the money, to build a hospital,” she said. “I have definite ideas about how it should be constructed as well as the principles according to which it must be run. In order to achieve my goals—without negotiation or compromise—I require not only substantial funds, but influence. As Countess of Rawnsley, I should have both. As your widow, I should be able to act independently. Since you are the last of the males of your family, I should have to answer to no one.”

  She glanced at him. “You see, I did take all the details of your present situation into account, my lord.”

  He was looking straight ahead. He had pushed his sopping mane back from his face. She still couldn’t read his expression, but she saw no signs of shock or anger.

  “My grandfather would turn over in his grave,” he said after a moment. “A woman—the Countess of Rawnsley, no less—building a hospital with the family fortune. All that money thrown away upon peasants.”

  “Wealthy people don’t need hospitals,” she said. “They can afford to keep physicians about to attend every trivial discomfort.”

  “And you mean to run it according to your principles,” he said. “My grandfather had a very low opinion of feminine intelligence. A woman with ideas of her own, in his view, was a dangerous aberrant of Nature.” He glanced at her, then quickly away. “You present me with an almost irresistible temptation.”

  “I hope so,” she said. “There is not another man in England whose circumstances are more neatly suited to my aspirations. I grasped this almost immediately and was quite frantic to get here before you killed yourself. You see, I am much more desperate to marry you than you could possibly be to marry anybody.”

  “Desperate,” he said with another short laugh. “I am the answer to your prayers, am I?”

  The halfhearted rain was building to a steady drizzle, and lightning skittered at the edges of the moorland. Still, they were not far from the house now, and traveling on lower ground than before.

  He seemed to be mulling the matter over.

  Gwendolyn waited silently, resisting the urge to pray. She did not wish to tempt Fate into more practical jokes. It had already landed him in a mire.

  She contented herself with a few cautious sidelong glances at the man she’d come to marry. The rain was washing some of the muck away, and even though his face was still dirty, there was no mistaking the nobly chiseled profile.

  He was terribly handsome.

  She had not expected that. But then, she was used to expecting the worst. The possibility of finding him attractive had not entered her calculations. She was adjusting those calculations when he spoke again.

  “I came here to finish my time in peace,” he said. “I hoped that if I kept to myself in this isolated place and didn’t bother anybody, no one would bother me.”

  “But we have come and turned everything upside down,” she said. “I can understand how frustrating that is.”

  He turned to her. “Abonville won’t leave me alone, will he?”

  “I shall do my utmost to persuade him to respect your wishes,” she said cautiously. She couldn’t promise Abonville would keep away forever, yet she did not want to use the duc as a threat. She did not want Rawnsley to feel he must hide behind a woman’s skirts. One of the most disagreeable aspects of being ill was feeling helpless and utterly dependent upon others.

  “If I do as he asks and marry you, he’ll probably leave me in peace, at least for a time,” Rawnsley said. “The trouble is, I should have you about instead, and yet . . .” His gaze drifted to her leg, then upward. After studying her face for a brooding moment, he returned his attention to the track ahead.

  “I have not had a woman in nearly a twelve-month,” he said tightly. “I had determined to put such matters behind me. Apparently, th
at species of saintliness is not in my nature, and a year is not nearly long enough to cultivate it. I should need decades, I suppose,” he said bitterly.

  Gwendolyn had not come expecting the kind of “saintliness” he referred to. She had been prepared to go to bed with him and try to make a baby regardless of what he looked like or how he behaved. If it had not seemed like cruel and unusual punishment then, it could hardly alarm or disgust her now. If a long period of celibacy—and for a man, a year must seem like eternity—and a glimpse of her leg was swaying his judgment in her favor, that was fine with her.

  “If you are saying you do not find me abhorrent,” she said, “I am glad.”

  “You have no idea what might be demanded of you,” he growled. “You have no idea what kind of man I am.”

  “Considering what I shall eventually gain by this marriage, it would be absurd, not to mention ungrateful, of me to fret about your personal flaws,” she said. “It is not as though I am perfect, either. I have made it clear that my motives are mercenary. You have seen for yourself that I am disobedient and sharp-tongued. And I know I am no great beauty. I am also obstinate. That runs in the family, especially among the females of my generation. The time may come, in fact, when you will view your loss of reason as a blessed relief.”

  “Miss—miss . . . Hell, I can’t remember,” he said. “I know it isn’t Trent, but—”

  “The name is Adams,” she said. “Gwendolyn Adams.”

  He scowled. “Miss Adams, I should like to know whether you are trying to convince me to marry you or to kill myself.”

  “I merely wished to point out how pointless it is, in the circumstances, to quibble about our respective character flaws,” she said. “And I wished to be honest with you.”

  A wicked part of her did not wish to be honest. She realized he was worried about his male urges clouding his judgment. The wicked part of her was not simply hoping the urges would win; it was also tempting her to encourage them with the feminine tactics other girls employed.

  But that was not fair.